DESCRIPTION: Project IV will focus on the aspects of brain activation and cognition that appear to be unusual in autism, namely on inter-cortical region integration or coordination. The main approach will be the use of fMRI studies, many of them event-related, to examine the location and relative time course of the activation in key cortical areas, particularly in tasks that require varying amounts of interprocess coordination. The main types of cognitive tasks to be studied include language comprehension, problem-solving and planning. Another component of this project examines the development of cognitive abilities in the age range of 9 to 14, again focusing on processes that integrate various streams of information. Finally, the project will develop a computational model of the cognition and brain activation in autism, using as a point of departure a new computational neuroarchitecture, 4CAPS.